There are certain anime which leave a certain impression on you after you finish watching it. It’s a feels like a void, that after watching this you won’t be able to find anything to fill the emptiness that this show leaves on an emotional level. White Album 2 is a rollercoaster ride of emotion, and trust me it is one hell of a ride.
White Album 2 was done by Satelight who have done a wide range of anime from Noein to Fairy Tail.
The story follows Haruki Kitahara and the light music club in his high school. It takes place in the last half of his final year in high school. The light music club is disbanding and the only thing that can save it is if Haruki gets the mysterious piano player from the room across from where he practices and finds a replacement singer before the school festival. Now White Album is a sequel but a standalone sequel, you don’t need to see White Album to understand what is going on in White Album 2. The story itself is what White Album 2 does very well. It is a drama, romance, slice of life anime and from the anime from the same genres I have seen White Album 2 is a great one, it does have its flaws but so does every anime. The story is set in two arcs: before the festival and the aftermath of the festival. The first focuses on character development and showing us the personality of the characters setting up the second half of the show. The second arc presents us with the development of the characters relationships with each other and expands upon their already developed characters. The story is tear jerking and wonderful and fills you with so many emotions through the course of thirteen episodes. To me it is a good love story with many twist and turns from, illness to love triangles.
The characters are also very well crafted. To start things off you have our main lead Haruki Kitahara, he is a smart, preachy, meddlesome and caring boy who would do anything to help his friends. He is your typical male lead from a slice of life show. Haruki is also a member of the light music club and he plays the guitar. There is also the dual female lead: Setsuna Ogiso and Kazuki Touma. Setsuna is the school idol who everyone adores, with a beautiful voive. Kazuki is the mysterious student transferred from the elite music department. Both characters like Haruki’s are very well fleshed out, they both add something different to the drama aspect of the show. Setsuna is the happy go lucky girl of the group who is near enough perfect, whilst Kazuki is your typical quiet tsundere character who at first doesn’t say much but you have a deep feeling she wants to say more than she does. In anime I usually don’t like the tsundere characters but Kazuki Touma is the exception. Her character is so well developed and her interactions with the other characters so well done that I couldn’t help but love her as a character. There are a few side charcaters like Haruki’s friends and Kazuki’s mother and they fill their roles perfectly. The only character I actually had a problem with was Haruki himself just for the fact that he was a little bit dense when it came to women but I suppose it was kind of a character trait as well.
The animation is quite good. It’s not Kill La Kill or Gurren Lagann quality but it’s very pretty and works well with the show. The animation was at its best during the musical performances especially at the festival performance episode. They used great use of lighting in the show which helped the moods of the scenes.
The soundtrack is amazing. Its musical score fits the show so well. The songs used in the performance scenes are well written and catchy as well as the opening and ending songs. The music in most places was light and peaceful and added a sense of magic to the show. The voice actors do a great job making their character’s come to life. Hitomi Nabatame did a great job voicing Kazuki Touma. She has appeared in a wide variety of anime like Oreimo voicing Saori.
Now I have gave my praises I should probably let you in on the flaws of the show. To me they are pretty minor, the biggest of these minor flaws being how abruptly the show ends. It just stops. However it could be argued that this is to show reality and that even though the characters want one thing doesn’t mean they will always get it.
Currently I White Album 2 hasn’t been licensed outside of Japan. I searched for a while and I couldn’t find any details on if it was licensed or not. However fear not if you want to watch this anime then you can do so on Crunchyroll, I will leave a link and you can go watch it and if you want to enjoy White Album 2 to the fullest you can sign up for the 2 week free membership and try out their premium services. Thank you for reading my review and till next time sayonara
